


Saddle White Surrey

by ladymedraut



Category: 15th Century CE RPF, The Sunne in Splendour - Sharon Kay Penman
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:47:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23994007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladymedraut/pseuds/ladymedraut
Summary: "She came to him as his eyelids drooped and the torchlight dimmed, clad in her hunting clothes with white roses in her hair, her great grey destrier half a step behind her."A short drabble about a king, a queen, and a horse.
Relationships: Anne Neville Queen of England/Richard III of England
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	Saddle White Surrey

Edward had told him it wasn’t proper. George had said it was pure folly. Richard had, of course, ignored them both, and he was glad of it when he saw the look on Anne’s face. It was not a conventional anniversary gift by any means, but then again, theirs had never been a conventional marriage.

“Happy anniversary, love,” Richard murmured, pressing the reins into her hands and a kiss onto her forehead.

“You shouldn’t have,” she replied, but she was glad that he had. Many a man would give his wife a horse, but most would choose some docile palfrey. Richard had given her a warhorse, white as snow with hooves that pounded the earth like thunder. His brothers would never understand—neither would her sister, for that matter—but she was Warwick’s daughter, and the closest he had ever gotten to a son. No one remembered it now, but there had been a time when she had galloped through the forests surrounding Calais on her father’s warhorse with a quiver of arrows on her back.

They looked at her now and saw a duchess, poised and practical. Obedient. Tame. They refused to see anything else.

But Richard saw what she had been, what she still was. And he gave her a warhorse named White Surrey.

* * *

Anne was dead. Anne was dead, and Henry Tudor was marching across England to meet him, and all of Margaret d’Anjou’s curses were coming true. Richard wasn’t even sure why he was fighting anymore. Maybe it was because he had nothing else left, so he went through the motions, pretending to care.

He couldn’t help but wonder if things would have been different if Anne had lived. If he had known that she was waiting for him in London, he might have cared whether or not he died on this lonely field outside Leicester.

But Anne was gone, and she had taken the sun with her. It had, of course, returned to the sky after the eclipse that had marked her death, but Richard still felt its shadow on him.

She was still there sometimes, on the edges of his consciousness. She came to him as his eyelids drooped and the torchlight dimmed, clad in her hunting clothes with white roses in her hair, her great grey destrier half a step behind her.

_Ride with me,_ she whispered, and he strained to reach her hand, but she was too many worlds away.

When he blinked, she was gone, but the horse was not.

“Catesby!” Richard yelled, and his friend came running. “Saddle White Surrey for me tomorrow.”


End file.
